West Nile Virus

West Nile virus (WNV) is an infectious disease agent that first appeared in the United States in 1999. WNV can result in an asymptomatic infection, a mild or moderate flu-like illness, or neurological diseases such as encephalitis or meningitis. Approximately 80 percent of people who are infected with WNV will show no symptoms at all. Typically people develop symptoms 3 to 14 days after they have been bitten by an infected mosquito.

Epidemiology Division, Field Surveillance Staff (FSS), investigate all reports of West Nile disease from notifiable disease reporters. ADPH displays the confirmed cases on the Alabama Morbidity Report, Arbovirals, and submits it to CDC's ArboNet for display by county, see West Nile Alabama Cases links below. Case counts are updated weekly.

Chikungunya

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) laboratory will test for chikungunya if the criteria are met by both the CDC and ADPH for specimen submission. Testing will not be initiated without the inclusion of all requested and completed documentation. Requests and test results may be delayed.

The only private lab in the U.S. performing chikungunya testing is Focus Diagnostics. Focus Diagnostics has accounts with most large reference labs (i.e. Quest, LabCorp, Mayo, ARUP) and many local hospitals. In order to receive more timely results, providers can submit their chikungunya test request to a reference laboratory that has an account with Focus Diagnostics.